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Tag: jan koum

  • Facebook Backtracks On Ads In WhatsApp

    Facebook Backtracks On Ads In WhatsApp

    More than a year after WhatsApp’s founders resigned in protest, Facebook is backtracking on its plans to include ads in the messaging app, according to The Wall Street Journal.

    WhatsApp’s founders, Jan Koum and Brian Acton, were so strongly opposed to ads being implemented in the app that “the two changed WhatsApp’s terms of service to explicitly forbid displaying ads in the app, and complicating any future efforts to do so,” people familiar with the matter told the WSJ.

    When Facebook acquired WhatsApp, Mark Zuckerberg said he agreed that ads were not a good fit for messaging platforms. Eventually, however, Facebook starting looking for ways to recoup the $22 billion price tag and put ads on the table. Koum and Acton’s response were likely an effort to stave off Facebook’s changing views.

    As Facebook became more determined to implement ads, the two founders decided to part ways with the company, leaving “a combined $1.3 billion in deferred compensation” on the table.

    Now, it appears that Facebook has again had a change of heart. According to the WSJ, the team responsible for figuring out how to best integrate ads into WhatsApp has been disbanded, and “the team’s work was then deleted from WhatsApp’s code.”

    Instead, WhatsApp is focusing on commercial interactions, since the messaging service is increasingly being used by companies to provide customer service. This opens all new ways for Facebook to monetize the platform without undermining the privacy and security that made it what it is today.

  • WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum Resigns from Facebook Over User Security and Privacy Issues

    WhatsApp CEO Jan Koum Resigns from Facebook Over User Security and Privacy Issues

    Today, WhatsApp co-founder and chief executive Jan Koum announced his resignation from the popular messaging app. He will also step down from Facebook’s board of directors, but his exact date of departure is undisclosed.

    In a Facebook post, Koum wrote that it’s time for him to depart from the company, adding that he will pursue hobbies but continue to support the company. He stated that he had already informed senior executives at Facebook and WhatsApp of his resignation plans. According to insiders, his absences from the company had become more frequent in recent months.

    Koum decided to leave after continued disagreements with Facebook over the messaging app’s privacy and encryption issues, according to sources privy to the matter. 

    When Koum and co-founder Brian Acton first developed WhatsApp, they vowed to protect user data and privacy. But Facebook appears to now threaten that promise. After buying Whatsapp for $19 billion in 2014, experts were wondering how the social media giant would earn revenue from its new investment. Given the founders’ resistance to allowing advertising or charging user fees, Facebook struggled to find ways to make money out of the encrypted service.

    But in 2016, WhatsApp seemingly compromised on its values when it announced that it would be sharing the personal data of its users with parent company Facebook. The move, however, gave Facebook a route for generating revenue from the app.

    Last year, WhatsApp built and tested free business tools for tapping and connecting with customers but plans to charge businesses to use certain future features. Facebook executives want to make the tools user-friendly, but doing so would likely mean that users would have their private messages intercepted, threatening the end-to-end encryption of the platform. 

    The constant tension and differences in approach took its toll on Koum and demoralized other WhatsApp employees. His decision to leave the company came prior to Facebook’s data privacy misstep with political firm Cambridge Analytica, according to internal sources. In the wake of the scandal, the social media giant’s privacy practices remain under scrutiny.   

    [Featured image via YouTube]